Ticketing is an essential function in public transportation networks. A ticketing function must successfully address several key requirements from both the travelers and the operator's perspectives. Typical traveler requirements may include ease of use (easy to learn and routine in practice), clear and visible pricing, secure with respect to loss, theft or forgery, e.g., ticket books, passes, etc., and privacy preserving. Typical operator requirements of a ticketing function may include user acceptance (barriers to usage can quickly lead to a rejection of the transportation system by the public), security (confidentiality of the transaction, authentication and non-repudiation, fraud resistance (amateur and organized)), and high availability. Additional requirements of the operator to ticketing functions will correspond to deployment costs, both for infrastructure (readers, validation systems, personnel, etc.) and mobility (tickets, cards, etc., in the hands of the traveler).
Tags may be employed in such ticketing applications. An example of a tag is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0201066 to Pascal Roux et al., which published on Jul. 17, 2014 and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In particular, BLE tags may be utilized for transactions such as ticketing or other activities. Any BLE mobile device (e.g., a smartphone) may answer to a BLE tag, which may prevent the desired mobile device in front of such a tag from making a BLE transaction (e.g., a ticketing or other transaction or activity). The tag power may be reduced to limit this risk. However, a minimum level must be kept to guarantee proper operation with any smartphone (and housing) having any sensitivity. The problem may still occur with unwanted smartphones in some proximity of the tag.